


belated valentine with plenty of citations

by heartcondition



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: A Partially Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Polyamory Negotiations, The Obligatory Bathroom Scene, Threesome, Vignettes, Wikipedia Articles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 05:51:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartcondition/pseuds/heartcondition
Summary: Soonyoung works at what the library calls the front desk, though it's actually situated all the way in the back behind the latter alphabetical half of the poetry section. He's pretty sure the slow days and flickering LCD screen on the outdated desktop computer are finally starting to get to him. Like, seriously.





	belated valentine with plenty of citations

**Author's Note:**

> [for the randomly generated prompt: wikipedia]
> 
> uhhhhh hello i recently wrote something i was super unhappy with so i churned this out to amuse myself.........its definitely a total diversion from my usual writing style (i.e. incomprehensible purple prosey bullshit) but i hope you enjoy it nonetheless......lol....
> 
> if you have notps i'll warn you now for mentions of gyuhao, sooncheol, and whatever soonyoung/wonwoo/mingyu is called. unbetad as usual so forgive/let me know about any glaring mistakes.
> 
> enjoy !!!!!!

 

 

 _For other uses, see_ **_Postmodern Romance (disambiguation)._ **

 

 

 ** Principle of Sufficient Reason:  ** _the principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or cause. The principle has a variety of expressions, all of which are perhaps summarized best by the following; for every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists / for every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs / for every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true. Some philosophers have associated the principle of sufficient reason with “ex nihilo nihil fit,” which means, “nothing comes from nothing,” and vice versa._

 

Soonyoung peers over the top of the desk and smiles. “Hey,” he says.

Mingyu puts a paper bag and a foam carry out cup down on the countertop, next to a stack of books Soonyoung’s supposed to reshelve at some point. “Hi,” he says, out of breath, like he ran here. “That’s hot chocolate, by the way, before you complain. I’m about to be late for class, so—I’ll see you later—bye!”

“Love you!” Soonyoung calls, but Mingyu’s too far away already for his response to be properly heard. He drags the paper bag towards him, peering inside before pulling out the slightly crushed pastry; an overly sweet chocolate thing from the place a few blocks over that Mingyu always buys him when he begs to be brought some kind of lunch.

He goes back to staring blankly on the randomized page he’s got pulled up on Wikipedia to pass the time, though the constant flickering of the screen sometimes gives him a headache, or makes him feel like he’s watching a 3D movie with only one eye. He sips at the styrofoam cup, grimacing when he realizes it’s coffee. Worst of all, it’s straight up black. Where the hell is he supposed to find sugar in a public library? Gross. The wrong name is written on the side of the cup—Soonyoung grins to himself imagining a hurried Mingyu snatching up whatever order slid out onto the counter and running away like a thief, which he kind of is. He stole some guy named Jihoon’s coffee. That shit is not cheap.

He hears the main doors of the library open with a gentle whooshing of air from the street, and then the soft thud of it closing again as the bottom drags over the pilled navy blue carpet. He watches flashes of someone weave their way through the nonsensical shelving set-up towards the tables in the back. When they meet eyes, the guy seems shocked to have found another person alive in here. He nods awkwardly at Soonyoung and then beelines to the left, behind the low shelf of dictionaries, thesauruses and encyclopedias, setting his coffee cup down at one of the many empty tables, followed directly by his laptop and his bag.

Soonyoung goes back to staring unseeingly at his computer screen and chewing on his pastry, eyeing the newest library goer with interest every now and again—there’s really just nothing else to do. He’s been at this job for too long, and it’s definitely starting to make him a little crazy.

The guy keeps squinting at one of the low bookshelves unhappily from his seat, then glancing back at Soonyoung and away again before he can get caught. Then, he takes his headphones out, and puts them back in. This continues for quite some time.

Soonyoung disappears into the staff room for a while, just to see if he can get the printer to work for once and maybe snag a granola bar from somewhere in the pantry, but when he comes back out to the desk, the guy is standing stiffly at the counter, headphones draped soundlessly around his neck. He’s looking just about everywhere except Soonyoung.

“Did you need something?” Soonyoung asks, sitting back down in his worn out desk chair. He accidentally uses his customer service voice, which is saccharine and sickly sweet, making himself want to cringe.

“Sorry to bother you,” the guy says, fingers curling around the edge of the desk, and Soonyoung’s got no idea how to tell this guy that the only thing he’s interrupting is Soonyoung’s suppressed laughter as he scrolls down a list of deleted article titles that ends on _Famous Watermelons,_ “but I felt like I should tell you—someone’s rearranged the encyclopedias so that the spines of them all spell out ‘fuck.’”

Soonyoung laughs. He can’t help it. “Thanks for telling me,” he says. “We’ve got pests. By that I mean bored high schoolers. They’re like rats, but worse.”

The stranger hums in agreement, tapping his fingernails rhythmically against the surface of the wood. He turns to leave, then squints down at the jumble of Soonyoung’s half eaten lunch on the desk. “Are you Soonyoung?” he says suddenly. A piece of his bleached hair is falling out of his hat, hanging down between his eyes.

“Yeah?” Soonyoung says. What the hell? He doesn’t have a nametag here, or a plaque.

He points down at Soonyoung’s styrofoam cup. “Is that black coffee?”

“Yeah?” Soonyoung says again, voice pitching higher. Is this guy like a psychic or what?

“I think you got my coffee order,” he says. “I’m Jihoon. Rise & Grind around the corner? You got hot chocolate, right?”

Soonyoung nods, and then Jihoon jogs over to his table and back. He sets down his styrofoam cup, spinning it until the messy scrawl of _Soonyoung_ is clearly visible in dried out sharpie down the side. “Do you mind trading?” Jihoon says. “I won’t be weird about germs if you won’t.”

“Sure,” Soonyoung says. Mingyu’s definitely gonna get a kick out of this—he’s a useless romantic that thinks things like this are all preemptively decided by otherworldly fates.

Jihoon’s smile comes out of nowhere, hits Soonyoung like a punch. “Thanks,” he says. Soonyoung feels like he’s being appraised by a particularly choosy cat. He’s got _dimples,_ holy christ. “I really needed this coffee.”

 

 

 ** List of Fictional Colors > Squant:  ** _a fourth primary color popularized by the experimental band Negativland in 1993. It is the only primary color to have its own scent._

 

“What _is_ that?” Mingyu says. He’s still standing in the doorway.

“What is what?”

“The wall color,” Mingyu replies, grimacing. He steps into the vacant apartment, peering around in mild horror. “I don’t even know a name for it. It’s horrible.”

Soonyoung runs his hands down Mingyu’s arms lightly with the gentle touch of someone trying to trick their dog into taking some medicine. He takes Mingyu’s hands. “It’s not that bad,” he says. Mingyu makes a face. Ever since he started fucking around with Minghao he’s gotten overly particular about color palettes. _Design majors_ , Soonyoung thinks grimly. They travel in packs. It’s like a hivemind. Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Okay, so it’s kinda bad. But the apartments cheap, there’s a clawfoot tub, and it’s close enough for you to walk to campus. We can repaint.”

Mingyu scrunches up his nose. “It smells weird,” he says, but the corners of his mouth tilt upwards with the beginnings of a smile, and Soonyoung knows he’s already got him.  

“It’s just the color,” Soonyoung replies. Mingyu tosses his head back and laughs, and Soonyoung pulls him closer, arms wrapped around his ribcage, chest to chest. “It’s like those popsicles that straight up _taste_ blue, except it’s just this awful color that smells like a moth.”

“You mean mothballs?”

“Yeah, those.”

“Okay,” Mingyu says. The landlord went off somewhere to bring Soonyoung the lease to look over while he waited around for Mingyu, and she should be coming back any minute now. “Let’s move in together. And open a window. And repaint.”

“We can do that,” Soonyoung says. He winds his fingers into Mingyu’s hair, tugging him down for a kiss. His heart feels like a freshly squeezed tangerine. “Let’s do that.”

 

 

 ** The Hum:  ** _a phenomenon, or collection of phenomena, involving widespread reports of a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise not audible to all people. The Hum is sometimes prefixed with the name of the locality where the problem has been particularly publicized._

 

Soonyoung waits outside of the arts building for Mingyu, staring up at the sky, wondering if maybe he really _should_ have brought an umbrella. The clouds are all flat hazy greys, and the air hangs heavy with the feel of oncoming rain; ripe with the sour smell of ozone, electric. He supposes he showed up a bit too early, considering Mingyu’s classes always tend to run a little long, and he’s regretting it now, the temperature dropping, pulling his jean jacket in tighter around his frame.

Bored, he spams Mingyu’s phone with emojis, moving to stand beneath the shadowy overhang of the building incase it really starts to rain. _I’ll be out in five!!_ Mingyu replies, in between a frog emoji and an octopus one. _Calm down!!_

Five minutes is like forty years in waiting-around-on-a-campus-you’re-not-a-student-of time. Soonyoung sighs, tucking his phone into his pocket and leaning against the cold wall. Some classes are starting to end, people filtering their way out the smudgy glass doors in fits and spurts, eyeing the sky warily as the cement colors with darkened wet spots. Across the walkway, Soonyoung watches the heavy music building doors swing open and closed in a never ending loop until a familiar head of bleach-bright hair shuffles out.

“Ah!” Soonyoung says, perking up. He waves his hand in the air, trying to catch Jihoon’s attention. “Jihoon!”

After that day in the public library, Jihoon just kept coming back, because _the campus library is distracting as fuck,_ and _the wifi signal is way less wonky here._ While these things are arguably true, Soonyoung likes to think maybe he has at least a little bit to do with it. Jihoon even bought him another hot chocolate once as a joke.

At the sound of his name, Jihoon turns around, pulls one earbud out, and squints. Soonyoung thinks he’s doing a fairly convincing impression of a turtle; face tucked halfway in the fully zipped collar of his jacket, wincing against the cold. It takes him a second to recognize Soonyoung, but when he does, he makes his way over, jogging the last few steps as the sky really starts to let out the rain.

“Hey,” Jihoon says, pulling out his other headphone. “You don’t go here, do you?”

Soonyoung shakes his head. “No, you remembered that right,” he says, “I’m just waiting for—a friend.” That’s a poor description of his relationship with Mingyu, but everytime he drops the boyfriend card with someone else he’s interested in, they get the wrong idea and either back off or accuse him of cheating, and he’s never felt quite articulate enough to ever really explain the whole thing properly. Mostly, it seems like people either innately get it or they don’t.

Jihoon opens his mouth to reply, but behind him, Mingyu finally comes through the glass doors and hurries over to Soonyoung, throwing an arm around his shoulders, knocking their hips together.

“This the friend?” Jihoon asks. Soonyoung eyes him—there’s wheels turning in that head somewhere, he’s sure of it.

“I’m Mingyu,” Mingyu says cheerily, and Soonyoung takes the moment to notice that he, too, is terribly underdressed for the weather, lacking an umbrella, a proper coat. He was really hoping at least one of them had brought an umbrella.

Soonyoung smiles. “Mingyu’s the guy who originally ran off with your coffee.”

Mingyu elbows him, blushing mildly in embarrassment at the thought of his clumsiness translating itself elsewhere, into other people’s lives.

“It’s alright,” Jihoon says. A single dimple makes itself known in his cheek. “You can just owe me one.”

The rain turns in to outright pouring, the sound of it loud and pervasive, like dropping handfuls of quarters against the concrete. The conversation comes deadstop as they all swivel their heads around to look at it, the noise echoing in the art building’s overhang.

“Can we get out of here?” Mingyu ventures. “I swear this part of campus has got some kind of curse. I keep hearing this low droning noise everywhere. It drives me nuts during class.”

“I keep telling you that you probably just have tinnitus!”

Mingyu frowns, crossing his arms. “I think I’d know if I had tinnitus!”

Jihoon pushes his hand back through his hair, and some of his bangs stay sticking straight up away from his face. He grins. “You sure it’s not just runoff sound from the bass amps in the basement of the music studios?”

Mingyu throws his hands up in exasperation, but it’s all just for show. “I know what bass sounds like!” Jihoon’s eyebrow quirks up as if to say _do you, though?_ Teasing Mingyu this easily—Soonyoung really likes him already. Feels kind of stupid with it, actually. Having new crushes is way too much fun.

Soonyoung ruffles Mingyu’s hair, though it’s kind of difficult, considering his height. He glances at the pouring rain again, has to speak up a little louder if he wants to be heard. “You guys wanna make a break for the cafeteria? Mingyu will buy you that coffee, Jihoon, totally free of charge.”

 

 

 **Floccinaucinihilipilification: ** _the act and/or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant, of having no value, or being worthless. It is often cited as the longest non-technical word in the English language._

 

“Myungho’s exchange is gonna end soon,” Mingyu says, face down on Soonyoung’s stomach. He had been idly playing a game of virtual scrabble with Jihoon with his head turned to the side, ear pressed to the soft fabric of Soonyoung’s sleep shirt, but when he lost the round again, he rolled sideways, and ended up like this.

“You gonna miss him?” Soonyoung asks. He feels kind of like the token husband in a corny family movie; idly reading the newspaper and drinking his coffee, except he’s reading an article on the cracked screen of his phone and sipping at the remains of some new tea brew that Mingyu wanted to try, and ended up not liking at all.

“A lot,” Mingyu says. It comes out whiny and muffled. He turns his head to look up at Soonyoung from below, frowning. “Even more than you missed Seungcheol.”

“That bad, huh?” Mingyu nods and goes back to smothering himself into Soonyoung’s middle. Soonyoung cards his fingers through the hair on the back of Mingyu’s head. “You gonna ugly cry saying goodbye like me?”

Back then, it was a bright blue day at the very beginning of summer, and Soonyoung felt kind of like an idiot crying beneath the awning out front of Seungcheol’s apartment building as he put the last of his moving boxes into his beat up bright red car. He knew Seungcheol was moving away, of course, in fact he knew it the whole time—the guy had told him about the job offer he had accepted that started almost immediately post-graduation, but it still sucked. Especially when he leaned into a hug, said _I’m gonna miss you most of all_ right against the shell of Soonyoung’s ear, then got in the driver’s seat and told him he would be okay, then drove off. Sayonara.

Seungcheol was right, of course, but Soonyoung still called Mingyu to come pick him up, and spent the night curled up in his bed doing a rather convincing impression of a sad armadillo, trying not to cry. Not exactly his best moments.

“I’ll cry, but I’ll do it looking better than you,” Mingyu retorts. He scoots up the bed, resting his head on Soonyoung’s chest, peering at the text on his phone curiously. “Do you ever think we should find someone together? Because then when they inevitably leave we can cry in bed together, and buy both our favorite ice cream flavors at the store to weep into instead of one. Don’t you think that might be nice?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung says, laughing. He cards his fingers through the dark locks of Mingyu’s hair, accidentally jostling his glasses as his hand winds behind Mingyu’s ear. “I think it would be more than nice. We’ve got a big bed and and our own apartment now, anyway.”

Mingyu hums, and Soonyoung feels it rumble through his chest. “I guess the question is just a who, then, right?”

“I guess,” Soonyoung echoes, putting his phone down, rolling them over, arranging kisses all over the curves of Mingyu’s face until he’s shaking with laughter, seeking revenge by jabbing him in the ribs.

The thought of Jihoon is like movement in the peripherals of Soonyoung’s vision, or a smudge on the otherwise clean lenses of Mingyu’s wire glasses. He could ignore it if he wanted to.

The key to that sentence being _if._

 

 

 ** Trout Mask Replica:  ** _the third album by American rock band Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released on June 16, 1969. The albums highly unconventional music style, which includes polyrhythm, multi octave vocals, and atonality, continues to polarize audiences, and has contributed to its reputation as one of the most challenging recordings in the 20th century musical canon. Tracks include; Frownland, Bill’s Corpse, Sugar n’ Spikes, Orange Claw Hammer, and The Blimp (Moustrapreplica)._

 

“I want to make, like, the best bad song, ever. The weirdest good song of all time.” Jihoon talks while he eats, a chair pulled up next to Soonyoung behind the front desk. There’s no one from management around to see, and he’s the only one working this floor today, anyway.

Whenever Jihoon comes by around lunch, sometimes he’ll bring the both of them takeout, and it’s relieving to share meals with someone who also just can’t take the heat that comes with eating spicy food. Chinese takeout has never been less painful.

“So, the thing is,” Jihoon rambles, “totally repetitive and predictable music isn’t pleasing, but neither is total randomness. Novelty is right there in the middle somewhere, but I wanna know how far I can push it.”

“Towards unpredictability?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon says. The way he twirls a chopstick through noodles is incredibly meticulous, and Soonyoung’s brain kind of wants to file it under sexy, resentful that that’s not even the weirdest thing he’s thought yet all day. “That’s what I’m doing for my composition masters, y’know? I’ve been collecting audio since the semester started. It sounds dumb, but I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Sounds smart to me,” Soonyoung says. “All I’ve been doing lately is trying to get into a different career.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung replies. More accurately, he’s been rolling the idea of having a threesome with Jihoon around in his head. Even more accurately, he’s been thinking about how the hell to ask Jihoon out, but that train got derailed when he asked Mingyu about it, and he said that first he’d rather try the threesome before going full blown romance on him. Less permanent, is what Mingyu had called it. Similar enough to see how it feels. He’s got no idea how to bring it up when Jihoon won’t stop talking about music and playing mobile games on his phone with Mingyu. “I have an interview with a radio station in a few weeks,” Soonyoung blurts. “I wanna do their morning show—it’s basically the fundamental opposite of this gig, and I’ve seriously gotta get out.”

Jihoon chews on the straw of his soft drink in it’s styrofoam cup, mouth tilting up at one corner in the beginning of a smile, and at this point Soonyoung doesn’t even know how he wants it, just knows that he wants it; fucking Jihoon, Jihoon fucking him—on the desk, in his bed, against the wall, the back of a taxi, he feels completely stupid with it. Keeps zoning out.

“Well you certainly do like to talk a lot for someone who works in a library,” Jihoon says, smirking like he’s been really clever, hiding his laugh with his hand. Soonyoung feels depraved. Jihoon’s got really nice nails; neatly manicured, cuticles pushed back, white tinted crescent moons on every single one of them, he can’t stop staring at them. Soonyoung gets weird fantasies all the time—usually he tells Mingyu, who will indulge as many as he can, but he keeps coming back from Minghao’s completely fucked out and void of anything but preemptive sadness—so now Soonyoung’s got ones about Jihoon doing his nails for him, pushing back his cuticles with one of those dollar store wooden sticks—he rarely ever gets to the part where Jihoon pushes him face down onto the nearest flat surface and fingers him, but it’s definitely there. Always, its in the back of his brain, drafting the offer text on his phone, the tone of which keeps switching from _do you want to get ice cream with my boyfriend I didn’t tell you was my boyfriend and me?_ and _this might be weird but are you into casual sex? what if it wasn’t actually casual? what about threesomes, too?_

“Do I?” Soonyoung says. He’s about to lose track of this conversation entirely.

Jihoon nods, goes back to chewing on his straw, and the plastic keeps getting caught up in his overly sharp canines, poking into his lip. He twirls a sauce stained disposable wooden chopstick like he’s some cool guy who’s a beast on the drums. Jihoon hums absentmindedly. “You’re definitely too loud for this,” he says, with some kind of finality, a sureness to it.

Soonyoung is absolutely going to recontextualize that later.

 

 

 ** Pitcher Plants:  ** _several different carnivorous plants which have modified leaves known as pitfall traps—a prey-trapping mechanism featuring a deep cavity filled with digestive liquid. The traps of what are considered ot be “true” pitcher plants are formed by specialized leaves. The plants attract and drown their prey with nectar._

 

“Is it too forward to just invite him over to our apartment?” Soonyoung asks, staring down Mingyu’s profile at the stove, chewing worriedly on his lip.

“I mean—” he starts, returning Soonyoung’s gaze, “—oh my god, can you please look at your hands when you’re cutting things!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Soonyoung singsongs, returning his eyes to the colorful array of bell peppers he’s slicing up on the wooden board. “Will it even read as forward, if I invite him? I can’t tell if he, like, knows or not.”

“I don’t know! Remember when we scared off Wonwoo? I don’t wanna do that again.” Mingyu pushes the spatula through their half-cooked stir fry, turning the heat up past medium, and glances at the timer on the rice cooker. “That sucked. Like, heavy duty vacuum style.”

Soonyoung pushes the cut peppers to the side of the board with the blade of the knife and starts chopping up a few cloves of garlic. Not very neatly, he might add, but it’ll do. “Okay, that was probably totally my fault—but—I don’t think he knew, which I should have known.”

Mingyu hums, stepping out of the way for Soonyoung to move over and slide everything off the cutting board into the pan, listening to it sizzle as the moisture burns out. “We can just invite him over for dinner,” Mingyu says. “Casual. We can be cool.” He hands Soonyoung the spatula to screw around with, since he hates feeling restless, having nothing to do, hooking his chin over Soonyoung’s shoulder, both arms cobra-coiled around his waist.

Soonyoung makes a disgruntled face, eyebrows furrowing. “And just see what happens?” he says.

Mingyu presses his face against Soonyoung’s temple, arranging a few kisses against his jaw, his ear. “And just see what happens,” he says, turning his head to let Soonyoung pat his cheek. Soonyoung hums to himself idly. The rice cooker goes off.

 

 

 **Catullus 16: ** _pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo (“I will face-fuck and sodomize you”) is the first line, sometimes used as a title, of Carmen 16 in the collected poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 BC - c. 54 BC). The poem, written in hendecasyllabic (11 syllable) meter, was considered so explicit that a full English translation was not published until the late twentieth century. The first line has been called “one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin—or in any other language, for that matter.”_

 

Jihoon mouths at the head of Soonyoung’s cock, free hand pushing lightly on the base of the vibrator in his ass, making his hips jump. He smiles. Soonyoung wants to simultaneously crush his head so he can’t go anywhere and kick him right off the edge of the bed, settles for letting his thighs fall further open and resisting the urge to grind up mindlessly in any direction.

The bed dips with Mingyu’s weight as he kneels on the blankets, pulling his shirt over his head, tugging his belt off before slinking up behind Jihoon, pressing his mouth to his shoulders, his back. When he presses two fingers back into his ass, Jihoon gasps, sliding his mouth of Soonyoung’s dick with a wet pop, dropping his face onto his hip.

Soonyoung gets one look at what’s going on between his legs and tips his head back in total agony. He feels like he’s dying, or dead, or about to die. This is the best bad idea he’s had all year. His back bows off the mattress, angling his hips down in search of some kind of friction again.

“Stop squirming,” Jihoon says, as he curls his hands around Soonyoung’s hips, fingertips pressing into his lower back, the curve of his ass, sliding his mouth back down Soonyoung’s cock, tongue pressed flat against the skin.

The only way Soonyoung could even parse how he got here like this is the aphrodisiacal properties he’s now certain the cuts of beef Mingyu cooked up for dinner must somehow contain; after the meal, Soonyoung kissed Mingyu, Jihoon clammed up, getting shy, then blushed furiously when Mingyu tried to coerce him into helping wash the dishes with the promise of a kiss, which somehow turned into Jihoon up on the counter, Mingyu tucked between his legs with Soonyoung watching them languidly kiss, and—well. The dishes still need washing.

“Jihoon,” Soonyoung says, an airy, squeezed up sound, and the head of his dick hits the back of Jihoon’s throat as he works his way down, eye’s cast low so that his lashes are darker than usual, laid out neatly in two rows. Soonyoung can’t help it, his hand winds down into Jihoon’s bright white-blonde hair and just _pulls,_ feels Jihoon’s tongue slide up the underside of his cock as he drags his head up.

“What,” Jihoon says, face flat, looking kind of unhappy to have been interrupted. There’s saliva on his chin, his skin is flushed pink with his hair all screwed up, and it should be gross, but it’s just _not._ Soonyoung swears he can hear his heartbeat pounding out inside his head. He makes a vague, frustrated noise, and lets go of Jihoon’s hair, throwing an arm over his face as Jihoon jerks him off lazily from base to tip.

“I don’t wanna come yet,” Soonyoung wheezes, clenching helplessly around the vibrator.

Jihoon reaches for Soonyoung’s hand and puts it right back in his hair. “Then don’t,” he says, rolling his eyes, and lets Soonyoung push him down until he’s just grinding his hips up into the tight heat of his throat.

There’s absolutely no way to categorize this feeling; Soonyoung’s brain flounders trying to reconcile the image of Mingyu leaning down to place another kiss on the juncture of Jihoon’s neck and shoulder, the look of Mingyu’s wide palm against the smooth flat of Jihoon’s stomach. It’s mind blowing. He might cry, for several reasons.

Jihoon rights himself and crawls up Soonyoung’s body, placing his knees on either side of his waist, shoving Soonyoung’s shirt higher on his chest, hands pressed lightly against the place where Soonyoung’s rib cage curves over his diaphragm. The vibrator keeps buzzing inside him, still on the lowest setting, because Mingyu is evil, knows it drives him wild, smiling mischievously when he first lubed the thing up and pushed it right in.

“What do you want?” Jihoon asks, like the answer isn’t the most obvious thing in the world. He’s now officially Bastard #1 in Soonyoung’s book. Top of the list.

Soonyoung squirms beneath him, back arching involuntarily against the mattress, feeling like he needs to stretch all the way down to his toes. “I—” he says, stumbling over words. “Please.” Jihoon stays right where he is, a hand reaching down behind him to tug at Soonyoung’s cock, then detours a little to glance back over his shoulder and kiss Mingyu, the angle straining tendons in his neck from a spot behind his ear all the way down to his collarbones.

Mingyu eases Soonyoung’s thighs apart again, reaching around to slick up Jihoon’s dick, get him off. He grins smugly at Soonyoung over the globe of Jihoon’s shoulder; probably because he wants to hear Soonyoung say it too. There’s Bastard #2. Soonyoung should’ve known they would gang up on him.

After languidly grinding himself against Soonyoung’s stomach, Jihoon eventually relents, lining up the head of Soonyoung’s dick with his rim, sinking down torturously slow with his eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed together. He doesn’t give Soonyoung any time to pull himself together, rising up on his knees before dropping back down again, making a satisfied sound that vibrates right out from the center of his chest.

It’s relentless; Soonyoung feels so hot with some vague roundabout embarrassment, wants to grab one of the pillows behind him, smother his face in it, get fucked. The last part of that list might get booted from the lineup if Jihoon doesn’t slow down, or someone doesn’t finally pull the vibrator out; he’s never been good at coming twice, instead spent a bunch of nights with Mingyu delaying his orgasms as long as he possibly can. Right now it doesn’t seem like he’s going to be able to last much longer.

Jihoon seems content to roll his hips for a while and not do much else, leaning down to run his hands across Soonyoung’s chest, bide his time by catching his mouth in a sloppy kiss. Mingyu keeps screwing with the settings on the vibrator, higher then off again, angling it towards Soonyoung’s prostate as he palms himself, enjoying the show.

Soonyoung groans, nerves coiling in his gut, toes curling with the feeling of his rising orgasm, and then Jihoon sits up and pulls off him as Mingyu slides the vibrator out. Soonyoung clenches around nothing, Mingyu’s thumb and forefinger squeezing tight at the base of his cock.

“Not yet,” Mingyu says, and his face is way too smarmy for any bedroom in the world; Soonyoung might kick him if he had the fucking energy. When the sensation fades, Mingyu lifts Soonyoung by a newfound grip on his waist, pulling his ass into his lap. He presses his thumb against Soonyoung’s perineum, enjoying the way he shivers, and fidgets indecisively, unsure whether to push in or pull away from the sensation, then slings his thighs up around his hips. Jihoon watches from the headboard, catching his breath.

Mingyu slides into him with ease, and Soonyoung desperately angles his hips down to meet him, locking his ankles behind Mingyu’s back, pulling him closer.

“Fuck,” Soonyoung says, “fuck, fuck, _fuck—”_

Mingyu pushes one of Soonyoung’s knees up to his chest, spreading him, a hand gripped tight on the back of his thigh. He leans down to slot their mouths together, pushing in deeper for a slow grind, stopping all movement momentarily as Soonyoung’s back arcs against the blankets, muscles locking up as he comes across his stomach, hands wound tights around Mingyu’s biceps, thighs squeezing around his hips. Mingyu laughs softly, decides not to crack a joke about Soonyoung’s stamina, pulling out slowly and opting to get himself off with the tight space between Soonyoung’s legs, bent back.

Blearily, Soonyoung rolls over and mouths at Jihoon’s rim until he comes with a shudder and a sigh, his face pressed into a pillow, a valley between his shoulder blades as he lets his head hang low. “Fuck,” he says aimlessly, then he leans over to the bedside table, flips over his phone, and presses the button on the screen that promptly ends the audio tape.

 _Save recording?_ the phone says. Jihoon presses _Yes._

 

 

 ** 100 Year Flood:  ** _a flood event that has a 1% chance of occuring in any given year. In the United States, the 100 year flood provides the risk basis for flood insurance rates._

 

Mingyu pokes his head through the bathroom door and smiles at Soonyoung. “Hi,” he says. “You’re up quite late.”

Soonyoung hums, sinking lower into the bathwater, nose and closed eyes sticking out of the water like wavebreakers. His hair is mostly dry, save for the ends of his bangs, the nape of his neck. The bathroom smells like lavender. “Couldn’t sleep…”

Mingyu comes in and closes the door, keeping the steam inside. When he starts peeling out of his clothes, Soonyoung cracks an eye to watch, then bubbles up with a laugh when Mingyu trips on his ankle that’s still caught in his jeans. He pulls his sweater off, then the light blue long sleeve he was wearing under it. Soonyoung take the opportunity to ogle him, watching the faint tracings of muscles shift and flex across Mingyu’s chest and abdomen in the dim, yellowish bathroom light. Mingyu gets his head caught in his collar for a moment. “Loser,” Soonyoung teases.

“You’re with me by choice,” Mingyu retorts, stepping into the tub, watching water spill out as he settles down into it from displacement, arms resting on the old porcelain sides.

“I could have drained it a little,” Soonyoung says. He’s sitting up now, looking at the tile floor, flushed faintly pink all over from the heat. The tips of his ears are bright red. His foot presses against Mingyu’s thigh.

“We’ve got a gutter in the floor,” Mingyu offers, leaning forward. He wants to kiss. Puts his hands down on Soonyoung’s knees and drags him closer. “It’s fine, isn’t it?”

“That drain barely works...” Soonyoung says, peering at the bath mat, slowly absorbing water. He  glances sideways. “Ah,” he mutters, reaching for one of Mingyu’s hands. “Your watch.”

Mingyu offers up his hand, letting Soonyoung turn the pale underside of his wrist up to undo the metal buckle with practiced ease. Soonyoung has to stretch and reach up to set it down on the flat edge of the sink with a metallic clicking noise, then leans all the way back against the short end of the tub again, making the water rise.

His eyes trail up the center of Mingyu’s face towards his eyes and then stay there. Mingyu doesn’t even react with anything but a vague and noncommittal noise that might just be the air leaving his lungs when Soonyoung plants his foot against his chest, pushes him back, and tells him to relax.

“I am relaxed!” Mingyu whines, putting Soonyoung’s foot to the side.

Soonyoung closes his eyes. “Okay,” he sighs. And then, “I think we should call Jihoon.”

“Like right now?”

Soonyoung pokes his toes against the outside of Mingyu’s thigh again. Mingyu grabs him by the ankle and pulls him closer like before. More water sloshes out onto the tiled floor. “No! Just—we definitely romanced him, I think, but we certainly did some other things too...what if he gets the wrong idea?”

“I’ll message him over our scrabble app,” Mingyu says, grinning. “Then he’ll know it’s definitely not just about sex. Scrabble isn’t sexy.”

Soonyoung looks like he’s about to argue with that, then doesn’t. Mingyu finally convinces him to turn around and lean back against his chest, though the water is starting to cool, and the steam is slowly dissipating. Soonyoung huffs and sighs, pretending to be irritable, telling Mingyu that if the downstairs neighbors sue for water damage, he’s going pretend he’s not the tenant, and mercilessly throw Mingyu under the bus.

 

 

 ** Syzygy:  ** _in astronomy, a syzygy is a (usually) straight-line configuration of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system._

 

Soonyoung paces while he brushes his teeth, up and down the short hall, passing in and out of rectangular slice of yellow light leaking out from the open doorway.

From inside the bathroom, Jihoon watches as he scrubs at his own with a cheap toothbrush he picked up on the way over at the dollar store, the taste of spearmint burning on his tongue, his teeth, the tang of it disconcerting against the flavor of cheap wine. In the mirror, his hair is too long, falling into his eyelashes, making him blink.

“Outta the way,” Soonyoung mumbles, coming up behind him, though the sound of it is garbled through the foam, leaning over to spit into the sink. His hand brushes down the bumpy line of Jihoon’s spine with the motion of it, settling on his hip.

Mingyu appears in the doorway, scrubbing his eyes with a pout. “Did you guys just abandon me when I fell asleep on the couch?”

“We were having romantic alone time,” Soonyoung says, serious, before his face splits into a demure, teasing kind of smile, talking around the bristles in his mouth. Jihoon hands Mingyu his bright orange toothbrush from the kitschy looking cup on the sink. Mingyu looks to him, accusing.

“Really?” he asks. Soonyoung snickers.

“Totally,” Jihoon replies, face flat, and then Soonyoung really laughs.

“No, you goon,” Soonyoung says. “We’re just keeping up with dental hygiene.” Soonyoung pats Mingyu’s face where the fabric of the couch has made red indents across his skin, then squeezes in towards the wall, pulling Jihoon with him to make room for Mingyu in front of the sink. In the fluorescent light, Jihoon’s hair looks a little green.

Soonyoung leans tiredly against the doorway and stares at the three of them in the mirror, crammed into the square, smudgy reflection inside the frame. He wants to peel the image right off the wall, fold it into his pocket like one of those dollar store nylon raincoats, keep it there for a while. They left the television on, and through the plaster, he can hear the movie’s credit music rolling, see the bluish glow of the screen where it bleeds into the hallway.

Mingyu lifts his arm so Jihoon can lean under it to spit out all the toothpaste foam into the basin of the sink, and Soonyoung thinks he seriously might cry. It has nothing to do with the amount of shitty boxed wine he drank, right out of a mug from the cupboard since he and Mingyu really only have two legitimate glasses, though they might actually be for champagne. Mingyu had way more of it, but his tolerance is miles higher. Jihoon, for the most part, seems exactly the same.

“What,” Mingyu says, catching his eye in the mirror, stopping in the middle of brushing his teeth. “Why are you making that face?”

“I’m not making a face!” Soonyoung whines, but he totally is and he knows it, saw it in the mirror barely a moment ago, looking like he’s about to melt into the floor like a slab of butter in a burning hot pan, fifteen seconds flat.

“He’s drunk,” Mingyu mutters to Jihoon, as if that wasn’t already obvious, like it’s some big secret, cupping his hand around his mouth as he leans down towards his ear. He turns to Soonyoung, pouts in a way that makes it unclear if he’s being sympathetic or just teasing him. “Don’t cry,” he says.

“I’m not going to,” Soonyoung replies, but it’s coming out warbled—the statement is absolutely about to be a lie.

Mingyu frantically continues brushing his teeth so he can get the bubbles out of his mouth and try to console Soonyoung, but Jihoon beats him to it. He grabs a tissue, pressing it onto Soonyoung’s face a little clumsily—maybe he’s more tipsy than Soonyoung thought. “Seriously,” he says, grimacing a little, bunching up the tissue under one of his eyes, “don’t cry.”

“But what if it’s good crying,” Soonyoung says, misty-eyed, holding Jihoon wrist. He leans his cheek into Jihoon’s palm, and then he bursts into tears.

 

 

 **Rule of Threes: ** _a writing principle that suggests a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective that any other numbers. The Latin phrase “omne trium perfectum” conveys the same idea._

 

“Oh my god,” Soonyoung says, refusing to unbuckle himself from the passenger seat. “I’m gonna throw up, pass out, and then die.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Jihoon says from the back seat, at the same time Mingyu blurts, “please don’t throw up in Jihoon’s car.”

Soonyoung pulls on his tie; the whole business setting getup is uncomfortable—what kind of fucked up world is everyone living in if the length of his tie means jack about anything?—and feels totally foreign against his skin. At the library, he got to wear sweaters and worn-in jeans, hang out with old ladies and pretend to be fixing the printer all the time without ever actually calling the maintenance man. He hasn’t even quit, yet, he’s nervous about this interview that much.

Mingyu had to pick out this suit for him and everything, hype him up in their bedroom mirror, and then Jihoon picked them up from outside their apartment, telling Mingyu to get into the driver’s seat because he desperately needs the practice.

“You have charms!” Mingyu says placatingly, reaching across the console to pat his thigh. “It’s just an interview, and you still have the library. My summer jobs are still lined up. It’s fine!”

“Think of it this way,” Jihoon says, not looking up from the list of groceries he and Mingyu have tasked themselves with hunting down while he’s off getting the life sucked out of him in corporate America, “you told me yourself they’ve been advertising this opening for weeks now; they’re probably desperate, and they’ll want to hire you.”

Ah, Soonyoung thinks, unrolling the bottom hem of his trousers that keeps stubbornly flipping up, Jihoon is so painfully practical, all of the time. It’s kind of comforting as long as he doesn’t think about it too hard.

Jihoon barrels on. “Also, we are not buying you raw cookie dough so you can eat it and get salmonella and actually die for real. Stop putting it on the date night grocery list.”

“But—”

“You’re gonna be late,” Mingyu chides, unlocking the car doors with a click. Soonyoung really should have gotten the car by now, to be honest, considering the place Mingyu pulled over in front of the building isn’t actually a parking space, and will likely have a bus trying to pass through it pretty soon. That’s a _real_ disaster waiting to happen. Soonyoung wipes the nervous sweat he’s developed from his forehead, and steps out onto the sidewalk.

“Call us if you finish before we’re done at the grocery store,” Mingyu calls through the open window. “Fix your tie!”

“What the hell is wrong with it now?” Soonyoung whines, trying to understand what Mingyu’s saying via the vague hand gestures he’s making from inside in the driver's seat. He tightens and straightens the knot, waits for Mingyu’s thumbs up. Jihoon doesn’t move to climb into the passenger seat before the two of them drive away—he thinks its wildly hilarious whenever he can make it look like Mingyu is his personal chauffeur.

In the elevator up to the ninth floor, Soonyoung makes a face at himself in the warped, brassy reflection of the sliding metal doors. It doesn’t really relax him, but he’s got the sound of Jihoon’s laugh locked in and memorized to sub in for the silence, and also the way that Mingyu’s snickering usually makes him keel over and have to hold on to something to remain standing up, that something usually being Soonyoung.

The inside of the radio station’s office is nonsensically decorated, and Soonyoung steals strawberry flavored candies from a scalloped plastic bowl by the door. The chairs he’s told to sit in while he waits in the lobby are uncomfortable, and the armrests are too high, so he sits with his hands clasped tightly between his knees, feeling restless.

A tall woman with a long, dark braid hanging down over one of her shoulders peeks out from one of the closed doorways. “Are you Soonyoung?” she says. “You’re right on time.”

Soonyoung plasters on his friendliest smile and nods, following her into the office. He wants to tell her that his timeliness is definitely no work of his own, but doesn’t think she’d find that very funny. “The buildings really easy to find,” he offers, sinking into a significantly comfier leather seat.

“You can relax,” the woman says, laughing. Jesus. Does he really look that scared? Soonyoung recognizes her voice from the evening show on the station Jihoon’s always got the stupid radio stuck on in his car—she answers calls from listeners and mixes up wildly obscure playlists of bubblegum pop. It’s familiar enough to ease a few of his anxieties. He stops fiddling with his windsor knot.

“We’re looking for people with unique perspectives,” she says, eyeing him. Soonyoung thinks he probably counts for that. He definitely counts for that. The interviewer leans back in her chair, tucking a pen behind her ear as she abandons a clipboard, looking up. “Tell me about yourself.”

Soonyoung breathes in, and then he opens his mouth.

 

 

** See Also **

     ↳ _Dewey Decimal System_

     ↳ _Landlord-Tenant Law_

     ↳ _List of Unexplained Sounds_

     ↳ _Scrabble Letter Distributions_

     ↳ _Eponychium_

     ↳ _Allicin_

     ↳ _Irrumatio_

     ↳ _Waterproof Wristlet Watch_

     ↳ _Looking Glass_

     ↳ _Full Windsor Knot_

 

 

** References **

  1. ^ _Rise & Grind Coffee Bar hot drink menu _(2018, Seasonal Fall Version) #3, #4.
  2. ^ Wang, Sissi. (8 July 2015) “The latest threat to the condo market: apartment buildings rise again.”
  3. ^ “rainstorm” ©2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
  4. ^ Reynolds-Case, Anne (2013-06-01). “The Value of Short-Term Study Abroad: An Increase In Students’ Cultural and Pragmatic Competency”. _Foreign Language Annals._ 46 (2): 311-322.
  5. ^ Coleman, D. & Bush, S (1977).  “The liberation of sexual fantasy” _Psychology Today._
  6. ^ “List of Culinary Knife Cuts” Culinary Institute of America (2011). _The Professional Chef_ (9th Edition).  pp 622-4.
  7. ^ Marie Claire, September 10, 2011; How I Planned A Ménage à Trois
  8. ^ “The Evolution of the Design Bathtub in the History.’ _CeramicaFlaminia._ 13 August 2015.
  9. ^ Newman JD. Neural Circuits Underlying Crying and Cry Responding in Mammals. _Behavioural brain research_. 2007; 182 (2): 155-165.
  10. ^ Sternberg, Robert J. (2007). "Triangulating Love". In Oord, T. J. _The Altruism Reader: Selections from Writings on Love, Religion, and Science_. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation. p. 332.



 

**Author's Note:**

> you are braver than the marines if u finished this......thank u for reading....!
> 
> feel free to come find me on twitter @ hoshiologyphd or @hochitown !! (its on private, follow reqs are ok!! im not picky lol)
> 
> thanks 2 my tl who didnt unfollow me while i tweeted nonsensically about this fic for several days, and also izzy who puts up w/ my bullshittery the most....also gdocs told me this was 7777 words but i guess ao3 counts words differently and now im mad about it....give me that lucky number assholes
> 
> (heart emoji)


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